Meerut sports shop owners booked for counterfeit gear

Meerut: Two owners of a sports goods shop in Meerut’s Civil Lines area were booked on Monday for allegedly manufacturing and selling counterfeit sports equipment bearing trademarks of leading brands SG, NIVIA and Cosco, police said. Gajraj Saini and Rajnish Saini, owners of Saini Khel Mandir, fled before police could detain them.

The complaint was filed by Amanpreet Singh, an investigation officer with Brand Protectors India, a firm authorised by genuine manufacturers to take legal action against those manufacturing or selling counterfeit goods of its client companies. In his statement recorded in the FIR registered at Civil Lines police station on May 11, Singh said, “We visited the shop on May 1 and purchased SG gloves, which were represented as genuine. Upon verification, the gloves were found to be fake.”

Singh said he later informed the station in charge, who accompanied a police team for a raid on the shop on Saturday. “During the search, police recovered 40 SG cricket bats and 21 pairs of SG gloves, all counterfeit,” he said. Police also found three white sealed boxes separately, while samples were sealed for forensic examination and one original piece was preserved for comparison.

SHO Saurabh Shukla said, “The FIR has been registered under BNS section 318(4), cheating and dishonesty, and sections 51 and 63 of Copyright Act, 1957. Efforts are on to nab the culprits.”